About me

I am a Senior Lecturer in the department of Linguistics and English Language, School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. I received my PhD from the University of Tromsø, following a specialist degree at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Moscow State University. Previously I was Lecturer in Language and Linguistics at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. I came to Edinburgh in 2012 as Lecturer in Theoretical Phonology.

I am a phonologist whose primary areas of interest concern the nature of phonological features and the division of labour in phonological theory. Recently I have also been working on the interaction between segmental and suprasegmental phonology, particularly on the proper analysis of so-called ‘pitch accent’ systems. My other interests are morphology-phonology interaction (in particular stratal/cyclic models), historical phonology, and historical language contact. In particular, I am interested in the interesting phonological commonalities among the languages of north-western Europe, such as preaspiration, ‘pitch accent’ systems, sonorant pre-occlusion etc. Read more about this project here; a monograph on the subject is currently under contract to Cambridge University Press.

At Edinburgh, I am affiliated to the Phonetics and Phonology, Language Variation and Change, and English Language research groups. I am also an affiliate of the Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics.

Most of my work is on Celtic languages — particularly Welsh and Irish, and more recently also Scottish Gaelic (chan eil ach beagan Gàidhlig agam an-dràsta). My PhD thesis provides a comparison of selected aspects of the phonology of two Brythonic Celtic varieties, and a book based on parts of it was published with Edinburgh University Press (read more here). My other particular interest is in Germanic — particularly North Germanic — languages. I have also worked on Slavic and Romance varieties.

News

• I have been promoted to Senior Lecturer.

• I have uploaded two draft manuscripts, one on the history of preaspiration in the Gaelic languages and another on the phonology of Welsh calediad and what it can tell us about feature theory. Comments are, as usual, welcome.

• In Semester 1 of ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀₂₀, I am course organizer for the Honours courses Phonological Theory and Language Contact and the History of English. I also teach in pre-Honours on Linguistics and English Language 1A.

• In the spring semester of ²⁰¹⁸⁄₂₀₁₉, I presented invited talks at the Languages and Literatures Research Seminar at the University of Stirling, at the Linguistics Seminar at University College London, at Newcastle University (with Warren Maguire) and at Formal Approaches to Russian Linguistics 3 at Moscow State University.

• In Semester 2 of ²⁰¹⁸⁄₂₀₁₉, I am course organizer for the pre-Honours course LEL2D: Cross-Linguistic Variation: Limits and Theories, where I also teach the phonology block. I also teach in pre-Honours on LEL2E: Structure and History of European Languages and on Linguistics and the Gaelic Language, and at Honours/MSc level on Historical Phonology.

• Oxford University Press has accepted the proposal for a volume I will co-edit with Björn Köhnlein (The Ohio State University), provisionally entitled Synchronic and diachronic approaches to tonal accent, for the Oxford Studies in Phonology and Phonetics series.